October 26, 2020 BARRON’S M7
INSIDE SCOOP
Citigroup Sees Biggest
Insider Stock Buy in Years
Jacobs paid $440,900 on Oct. 14
for 10,000 Citigroup shares, a per
share average of $44.09. He
conducted the transaction through a
trust, according to a form that Jacobs
filed with the Securities and
Exchange Commission. He now owns
18,438 Citigroup shares through the
trust, and 4,462 more shares in a
personal account. Jacobs, a former
president and managing director of
Pacific Investment Management Co.,
has been a Citigroup director since
Jacobs declined to comment on his
purchase of Citigroup shares, his first
on the open market.
The stock purchase is the largest
by an insider at the bank since
February 2016, when then–Chief
Financial Officer John Gerspach paid
$489,000 for 13,000 Citigroup
shares. Gerspach retired from the
CFO job in February 2019.B
Citigroup director
Lew W. “Jay”
Jacobs IV Jacobs
paid $440,900 on
Oct. 14 for 10,000
Citi shares,the
largest insider
stock purchase in
nearly five years.
Decreases in
Holdings
Griffin Industrial Realty
(GRIF)
Gamco Investors(GBL) revealed a
position in the industrial and office
real estate investment trust of
1,451,847 shares. Gamco sold
13,888 Griffin shares at per share
prices ranging from $52.01 to
$61.29 from Aug. 27 through Oct.
- Gamco also purchased 4,214
Griffin shares at prices from $51 to
$54 apiece from Aug. 21 through
Sept. 28. The result lowered
Gamco’s stake to 25.7% of Griffin’s
tradable stock.
Lifetime Brands(LCUT)
Mill Road Capitalreduced its in-
terest in the dinnerware maker and
distributor to 1,568,203 shares. Mill
Road sold 60,000 Lifetime Brands
shares on Aug. 25 at $9.59 apiece,
reducing its interest to 7.2% of the
outstanding common stock. Mill
Road also revealed that it wrote call
options against 280,000 of its Life-
time Brands shares that have a $15
exercise price and will expire in
May 2021.
Marchex(MCHX)
Harbert Managementcut its
stake in the customer-phone-call
analytics firm by 28%, to 1,882,374
shares. Without citing a reason,
Harbert’s sold 758,139 Marchex
shares on Oct. 13 at a price of $2.15
each, leaving it with a 5.4% stake in
Marchex’s outstanding stock.
Eagle Materials(EXP)
Sachem Head Capital Manage-
mentlowered its interest in the
construction-materials company
with the sale of 400,000 Eagle
Materials shares. Sachem Head
sold the shares from Oct. 5 through
Oct. 20 at prices ranging from
$89.42 to $92.39 apiece, and now
owns 1,942,834 Eagle Materials
shares, approximately 4.7% of the
tradable stock. Now that Sachem
Head’s stake in Eagle Materials has
fallen under the 5% threshold, Sa-
chem Head is no longer obligated to
disclose transactions in the shares.
It could sell its remaining stake
without further public notice.
Leveraged
Buyouts Are
Rebounding
POWER PLAY
C
itigroupstock’s market
value has been cut nearly
in half so far this year, but
director Lew W. “Jay”
Jacobs IV just made the
largest open-market stock
purchase by an insider in
nearly five years.
Citigroup (ticker: C) shares tumbled
47% in the first quarter, and the year-
to-date loss remains close to that
figure. The stock has been hurt by
company-specific and macro factors.
Earlier this month, Citigroup was
fined $400 million by regulators for
deficiencies in its risk-management
controls. The penalty overshadowed
upside third-quarter earnings,
disclosed on Oct. 13. Like other big
banks, Citigroup’s interest income has
been squeezed by near-zero rates that
could persist for years.
By ED LIN
P
rivate equity is no longer
sheltering in place.
Barron’spreviously noted
that Wall Street largely re-
treated to the sidelines in the first
half of the year, unwilling to make
bets on companies amid the market
volatility, and with large parts of
the economy shuttered. But the
third quarter saw activity creep up:
Activists are laying the ground-
work for their 2021 campaigns, and
pipelines for merger and acquisi-
tions are being replenished. And
now there’s evidence that leveraged
buyout activity is rebounding, as
well.
In the third quarter, private-
equity firms announced $146 billion
in new deals, marking a nearly $100
billion jump in deal activity from the
prior quarter and even eclipsing the
$103.8 billion in deals from the third
quarter of 2019, according to
Dealogic, as reported by The Wall
Street Journal. Some of that
resurgence has to do with deals—
many tabled at the start of the
lockdown—coming back to life.
There are other reasons for the
surge in activity, too. Asset manag-
ers, including private-equity firms,
have more than $2.6 trillion in dry
powder ready to be deployed,
according to Preqin data, plus the
appetite for riskier, leveraged loans
appears robust.
TheSPDR High Yield Bond
exchange-traded fund (ticker: JNK)
gained 4.5% in the third quarter,
while theiShares Investment
Grade Corporate BondETF
(LQD) gained 0.8%. So far this
month, the high-yield bond ETF is
up 1.1% while the investment-grade
ETF is down 0.3%.
Taken together, the fourth quar-
ter could be a big one for buyouts.B
By CARLETON ENGLISH
Original Filings
Shattuck Labs(STTK)
Redmile Groupreported an initial
interest in the clinical-stage bio-
technology company of 5,619,914
shares. Of that stake, 2,178,738
Shattuck shares were derived from
the automatic conversion of pre-
ferred securities into common stock
at the close of Shattuck’s initial
public offering on Oct. 14. The re-
maining 3,441,176 Shattuck shares
were purchased that same day, at
per share prices ranging from the
IPO price of $17 to a high of $22.10.
Redmile currently holds a 13.5%
stake, and further disclosed that
Redmile founder Michael Lee was
appointed to Shattuck’s board in
June, ahead of the IPO.
C4 Therapeutics(CCCC)
Cobro Venturesdisclosed an initial
stake in the biopharmaceutical firm
of 2,484,425 shares, excluding those
held directly by Cobro partners. All
of those C4 Therapeutics shares
resulted from the conversion of pre-
ferred securities into common stock
immediately at the close of C4 Thera-
peutics’ IPO on Oct. 6 that priced at
$19 per share. Cobro now holds a
5.8% position in C4 Therapeutics’
outstanding stock.
These disclosures are
from 13Ds filed with
the Securities and
Exchange Commission.
13Ds are filed within
10 days of an entity’s
attaining more than
5% in any class of a
company’s securities.
Subsequent changes
in holdings or inten-
tions must be re-
ported in amended
filings. This material is
from Oct. 15 through
Oct. 21, 2020. Source:
InsiderScore.com